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Parents, federal officials and advocacy organizations are scrutinizing how the Israel-Hamas war, Palestinian activism and terrorism are presented in K-12 classrooms, with disputes involving a Massachusetts teacher, New York City educators, outside advocacy groups and unauthorized lessons in Oakland.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Public schools in several states are facing growing scrutiny over how teachers and outside organizations present Israel, Hamas, Palestinian activism and antisemitism to children, raising disputes over whether classroom materials provide historical context and competing perspectives.
The cases do not establish that Hamas itself is directing U.S. public-school instruction. Instead, concerns examined in a Just the News report involve teachers, advocacy groups and curriculum materials accused by critics of minimizing Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, portraying terrorism as resistance or presenting heavily one-sided accounts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
One of the newest disputes is unfolding in Newton, Massachusetts, where parents have questioned the hiring of Maryam Abu-Hasaballah as a middle-school history and social studies teacher.
The Middle East Forum reported that Newton, which it described as having approximately 18,000 Jewish residents in a population of about 90,000, hired Abu-Hasaballah after she completed an honors thesis at the University of Connecticut examining campus protests following the Oct. 7 attack. Just the News said MEF was the only organization it found that had specifically raised concerns about Abu-Hasaballah’s hiring.
Her 2025 University of Connecticut senior thesis compared UConn’s response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations with university responses to antiwar and civil-rights activism during the 1960s and early 1970s. UConn’s repository describes the paper as examining how university administrations use police, policies and punishment to control student protests.
“The Pro-Palestinian Anti-Apartheid movements, while prevalent for many decades, blossomed to a new height across campuses all over the country during the 2023-2024 academic year and reflected a great parallel to the anti-war and racial equality movements of the ‘60s and early ‘70s,” Abu-Hasaballah wrote. “This movement grew in response to the devastating actions taken by the Israeli government to wage war on Hamas, a militant Palestinian nationalist group.
“In the midst of this war Israel has enacted collective punishment on the civilians of Palestine leading to the deaths of over 50,000 innocent men, women, and children,” her thesis added.
Critics of the paper have focused in part on what they say it omitted about the Hamas-led attack that preceded the war.
“The October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel was not addressed at all,” Sagit Sade Attia, National Senior Director of Academic Action at the Israeli-American Council, said during a Newton School Committee meeting concerning the hiring.
“About 1,200 people were murdered that day, including babies, civilians, children, and elderly people. There were also reports of sexual violence, kidnapping of 250 people, and horrific acts of brutality broadcast through telegrams by the terrorists themselves, including attacks on people in their homes and the Nova Music Festival. In addition, over 3,300 were wounded that day.”
Parents raised the issue publicly Sept. 14 and questioned whether Abu-Hasaballah’s academic writing demonstrated the balance they expect from someone teaching history and current events to eighth-grade students.
“What happens when someone whose work reflects highly ideological and deeply one-sided positions is hired to teach subjects directly related to those positions?” one resident asked.
“How can an eighth-grade history teacher teach students to critically examine current events and historical conflicts if her own academic work does not demonstrate engagement with essential context and competing perspectives?” Attia asked.
Parent Josh Krefetz also objected to what he described as a school response citing the presence of Jewish staff members.
“When you tell us, ‘Don’t worry, there was a Jew’—imagine telling a black person, ‘Don’t worry, there’s a black man on the Supreme Court, what are you worried about?’” Krefetz said, according to MEF. “Put in any other race or religion, or anything, for the way we’re spoken to by this city, and you might think things need to change a little bit.”
The Newton Public Schools superintendent and the principal of Charles E. Brown Middle School did not respond to inquiries from Just the News, according to the outlet.
The Massachusetts controversy follows a federal civil-rights investigation involving much broader allegations in New York City.
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened a Title VI investigation into the New York City Department of Education on April 23 after receiving complaints about a group identified as NYC Educators for Palestine.
The department said the complaints alleged that educators organized seminars centered on “Palestine, Zionism, and Resistance,” taught children as young as 5 about “contemporary and historical Palestinian resistance,” characterized Zionists as “genocidal white supremacists” and promoted support for Hamas and its “martyrs.” Those are allegations under federal investigation rather than findings that the conduct occurred as described.
“No child should be taught by his or her teachers to hate their peers. Neither should Jewish children be taught that being Jewish somehow makes them inherently guilty or proponents of hate and violence,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said when the investigation was announced.
“Discrimination has no place in our schools, and, unlike the previous Administration, the Trump Administration will not turn a blind eye to anti-Semitic harassment. OCR will investigate these appalling allegations to ensure the equal treatment of all students,” Richey added.
The Education Department has not publicly announced a final determination in that investigation.
Outside organizations offering materials or programming to schools have also come under scrutiny.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., sent a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon in September 2025 challenging efforts by the Council on American-Islamic Relations to work with schools.
“Such an organization should never have access to our nation’s children. On August 26, 2025, CAIR Philadelphia announced plans to partner with schools across Pennsylvania and Delaware to make them ‘more inclusive.’ While details of their alleged partnerships are unclear, CAIR’s history makes it clear that its influence will be detrimental and possibly illegal,” Cotton said in the letter.
Cotton also criticized educational materials available through CAIR that, according to his letter, advise teachers against describing the Sept. 11 attackers with terms including “Islamic terrorists,” “jihadists” or “radical Islamic terrorists.”
CAIR has faced longstanding accusations from political opponents and other critics concerning past associations with organizations linked to Hamas. A National Review account detailed those allegations, including financial relationships cited by critics.
CAIR rejects claims that it supports terrorism and has said: “We unequivocally condemn all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the U.S. Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”
Hamas itself has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the United States since 1997. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, is also federally designated.
The United Arab Emirates also included CAIR on a list of 83 organizations it designated as terrorist organizations in 2014, according to the UAE government. That foreign designation is distinct from U.S. law; CAIR itself is not on the U.S. State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.
CAIR chapters have continued working directly with some American school systems.
In January 2024, Just the News reported on CAIR-Chicago’s involvement with public schools. The organization’s Chicago Public Schools Project states that CAIR-Chicago has worked with Chicago Public Schools and other public and private districts since 2014 on programs intended to promote inclusion and understanding of Islam and Muslims.
Its listed activities include cultural-sensitivity training, seminars on Muslim backgrounds, student-rights advocacy and programming arranged through Communities In Schools.
Another dispute centers on the Middle East Children’s Alliance and its Teach Palestine Project.
The Network Contagion Research Institute published a 2025 report examining MECA’s financial relationships with Palestinian organizations, including groups the institute said had personnel or financial connections to the PFLP.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies subsequently criticized Teach Palestine materials, arguing that lessons recast terrorism as resistance and omit important information about Hamas.
One Teach Palestine description of Oct. 7 cited by FDD does not name Hamas and instead says “fighters in Gaza, who were angry about how Israel has been treating people in Gaza, broke down the wall and killed many Israeli soldiers and some Israelis who were at a music festival.”
Local disputes over instructional materials surfaced almost immediately after the Oct. 7 attack.
In Oakland, California, an estimated 75 to 100 K-12 educators participated in an unauthorized Palestinian-focused “teach-in” in December 2023 involving guest speakers, classroom discussions and supplemental lessons, ABC News reported.
Teachers involved said they believed materials supplied by the Oakland Unified School District did not adequately represent Palestinian perspectives.
One participating teacher said the district materials “did not include the Palestinian struggle for freedom and liberation.”
Another educator said they presented the attack “in a very, very one-sided pro-Israeli way.”
Oakland Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammell opposed the unauthorized materials and told families she was “deeply disappointed by the harmful and divisive materials being circulated and promoted as factual.” District rules governing controversial subjects required instruction to include conflicting viewpoints, permit alternative views and rely primarily on established facts.
The disputes in Newton, New York, Chicago and Oakland involve different educators, organizations and legal questions, and evidence concerning one case does not establish misconduct in another.
Together, however, they have intensified a national argument over how schools vet instructors and outside curriculum providers when teaching children about Oct. 7, Hamas, Israel, Palestinian nationalism, Zionism and antisemitism — and whether politically contested material is being presented with sufficient factual context and competing perspectives.
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